"The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them."
— Mark Twain

Thursday, November 01, 2007

The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls

Wow, this book was actually pretty good. I couldn't put it down. It was written in such a style that you couldn't wait to see what would happen next in the little girls life. Her family was poor, starving and surviving. They were so dysfunctional they are off the charts. It is an amazing story from the little girls perspective.

Her mom was a bit loony and tried to be an artist. Her dad turned out to be an alcoholic, brilliant but always going on a binge. I guess the best way to describe their lives would be eccentric.

This autobiographical account made you think her life was hard yet easy. She usually described tragic events that would have been huge stumbling blocks in most peoples lives as humorous and not a big deal.

Her first memory was from three years old having an accident with boiling water, hot dogs and her tutu catching fire. She was in the hospital for a very long time. The book starts out with her wondering if she is over dressed driving down the street in a Taxi then she looks up and her mother is scrounging through a dumpster. Her mother thinks being homeless is such an adventure. Her parents even after having four children didn't become conventional. They were a matched pair even to the end.

The little girl was starving and smelly yet she survived the hardest life and even turned it around to become a very successful writer in a big city. You would have thought they all would have perished long ago but all the kids keep on trying and pulling together despite their parents and situation.